Field trip (sep 2008)

BTRG went to Morocco trying to get more brown trout samples for genetic analysis being performed in co-operation with Mohamed Ghamizi and Said Janjani, both from University Cadi Ayyad, Marrakech, and Patrick Berrebi. Aleš, Saša and Johannes crisscrossed the country searching mainly for brown trout from the Mediterranean drainage.

Brown trout of Atlantic lineage was recently found in Sicily, therefore populations in North Africa might represent a link to populations of Atlantic lineage in Spain. Preliminary genetic analysis of Moroccan brown trout confirmed that at least those from the Atlantic drainage appear to be closely related to brown trout from Iberian Peninsula. Previously, Bo Delling has studied Moroccan brown trout from morphological perspective, now, we intend to analyse them also from the genetic perspective.

Picture gallery will be uploaded in the next few days.

Workshop in La Fouly

Andrej participated in a workshop "Managing adaptive genetic variation in conservation biology" organized by the University of Lausanne in La Fouly, Switzerland, between 3-6 September 2008. Invited speakers and participants presented theoretical and practical examples of how to detect and manage traits that are under selection in a specific local environment. Andrej presented his work in progress "Establishing a brood stock of least introgressed native brown trout from admixed populations".

Some pictures from the workshop can be found here.

Picnic

Chair of Genetics, Animal Biotechnology and Immunology (where most of the balkan-trout team works) organized the second annual picnic. There was a lot of things to celebrate: the end of the school year, Tamara's PhD, Peter's birthday and good grades received by the entire research group.

More pictures available here.

New PhD

Tamara Rozman successfully defended her PhD thesis "Characterization of transferrin locus and its application in phylogenetic analysis of genus Salmo", available here. Transferrin was the marker of choice because mitochondrial markers and microsatellites (frequently used nuclear markers) have several limitations when used in phylogenetic studies. A major problem was ancient tetraploidization of salmonid genome resulting in two actively transcribed transferrin loci.

Tamara was involved in this project for a long time, partially because of this and this reason, and also because the study was carried out on third generation of marble trout × brown trout hybrids (generation time 2-3 years).

Vrljika paper

Vrljika softmouth trout paper was just published. Overview here.

Plans for this summer

Summer - no students, too hot for latex gloves, low water level, fish have nowhere to hide. Time to get as many fin clips as possible. Expect pictures in early August and late September.

(Peter provided the guidebook scennery. And a drink for the photographer.)

Young researchers

Public Tender for Early Stage Research Candidates for the Year 2008 is out (available in Slovenian and English). Those who are interested can join our group under the mentorship of Simona Sušnik.

Criteria in details and how to apply are here, briefly:

• Bachelors degree and average grade >8.00 or
  
• Completed second degree according to the Bologna process and average >8.00 or
  
• Masters degree of science
  
• Maximal age 28 years (born 1980 or after)
  

Duration of founding:

• 4.5 years (for 4 year doctoral study course)
  
• 3.5 years (for third level study according to the Bologna process)